What Does Ezekiel 23:14 Mean in the King James?
And that she increased her whoredoms: for when she saw men pourtrayed upon the wall, the images of the Chaldeans pourtrayed with vermilion,
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The image on the wall is an inscription that turns a gaze into appetite.
THE MEANING
What meets your eyes can enlarge desire before your body moves. Here, the pictured men become part of an intensifying pattern of sexual betrayal.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie that an image stays outside you until you act on it dissolves here: the verse links what she sees with what grows in her.
THE ROOT
מְחֻקִּים
meḥuqqim
GROWS FROM
חקק
To cut in, engrave, or inscribe; by extension, to depict or prescribe.
The word translated “portrayed” comes from a root also used for prescribing a statute or decree. These figures are not merely seen: they are an inscription placed before the eye, and the verse links that image with a swelling of sexual betrayal.
ALSO GROWS
ḥoq: A prescribed statute, ordinance, or boundary.
חֹק
The root’s movement from engraving to prescribing shows how something set down can define what is before you.
meḥoqeq: One who prescribes or decrees.
מְחוֹקֵק
The same root can name the one who sets something in place; here, a made image occupies the gaze.
וַתּוֹסֶף
vatosef
GROWS FROM
יסף
To add, increase, or continue.
“increased” in this verse is vatosef. The verb presents her as adding to what is already underway. The escalation extends the same course rather than appearing from nowhere.
ALSO GROWS
tosefet: An addition or increase.
תּוֹסֶפֶת
This branch makes the verse’s escalation concrete: something is added to an existing pattern.
Yosef: A name formed from the same root, meaning “he adds” or “may he add.”
יוֹסֵף
The name preserves the root’s sense of addition, making the verse’s “increased” an extension of what is already present.
THE PATTERN
What the eyes take in can kindle desire and carry it into action.
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.THE THREAD
Thou also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it before thee, and pourtray upon it the city, even Jerusalem:Both verses use חקק (ḥaqaq, to engrave or depict) for what is portrayed. The repeated root reveals portrayal as an active inscription: the eye encounters a scene someone has set in place.
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